The present invention relates generally to the fabrication of computers and, in a preferred embodiment thereof, more particularly relates to a unique support module structure which carries both the expansion card and riser card portions of a desktop computer and may be removably plugged into a socket of the computer motherboard, thereby eliminating the conventional necessity of separately installing the expansion cards and riser card on, and separately removing them from the motherboard.
In one conventional construction thereof, desktop computers include an outer housing having a bottom wall on top of which the computer motherboard or system planar is horizontally mounted. To install expansion and riser cards within the housing it has heretofore been necessary to individually position each card over the motherboard and separately connect each card to the motherboard using appropriate cable connectors (or other individual connection apparatus) with the expansion cards in a horizontally stacked array and the riser card perpendicular to the motherboard, as well as installing a grounding connection for the expansion riser card. In another conventional desktop computer construction, the expansion cards are individually connected in vertical orientations to the motherboard without a separate riser card.
These installation techniques tend to be laborious and time-consuming, thereby undesirably increasing the overall fabrication cost associated with the computer. They also tend to adversely affect the serviceability and upgradeability of the computer since subsequent access to the motherboard requires that the expansion cards (and the riser card, if used) be individually disconnected and removed to gain access to the motherboard portion which they overlie. This disconnection of the expansion cards typically entails the laborious task of unscrewing each of the expansion cards from a housing structure, and disconnecting a variety of cables routed from the cards through the computer chassis to various connection points therein.
When servicing or upgrading of the motherboard is completed, the removed expansion cards must, of course, be individually reconnected to the motherboard. Typically, other internal computer components, such as cooling fans, are also individually connected to the motherboard and must be separately disconnected, to provide access to the motherboard portion which they overlie, and then reinstalled when the servicing or upgrading of the motherboard is completed.
It can readily be seen from the foregoing that it would be highly advantageous, from serviceability, upgradeability, and manufacturability standpoints, to provide improved apparatus, and associated methods, for removably mounting operating components such as expansion cards (and, if incorporated in the computer, an associated riser card) on a computer motherboard. It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide such improved apparatus and methods.